


The Things You Love

by thebisexualbanshee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Headcanon, M/M, Season 11, canon-deviant, canon-extra, safe house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:00:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebisexualbanshee/pseuds/thebisexualbanshee
Summary: Dean can shake off most of the visions in the soul eater's nest, but one in particular forces him to confront a piece of his heart he's kept secret.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on season 11, episode 16, "Safe House," where Sam and Dean investigate a ghost in a home--the same home where Bobby and Rufus locked away a soul eater years before. Dean sees Sam's dead body in the nest (because it shows you what you love), which makes sense, but I wanted/needed a little bit of Destiel to happen there. So I made it happen here!

**_“Apparently, the nest messes with their victim's head,” Sam explained. “Shows them things they love, parts of their soul in distress. It keeps the victim's soul vulnerable.”_**  
  
***  
  
_It isn’t real. It isn’t real. None of this is real_ , Dean repeated to himself, over and over—mostly in his head, but a few times when it got bad, he’d whisper it to himself. “It isn’t real.”  
  
He knew the soul eater’s nest would be rough. The notes he and Sam found from Bobby’s and Rufus’ case, years ago, made that much clear. He’d wanted to be the one who stayed in the real world—NOT the one who got stuck in anti-Disney Land—but he was always awful at rock-paper-scissors. He knew, though, that even if he _had_ beaten Sam, he’d never have sent his little brother into the nest anyway. He’d have made something up. It always came down to keeping Sammy safe.  
  
So when he stepped into the dark alter-verse of the nest and saw Sam’s body lying in the floor, lifeless and bloodied, he knew he’d made the right choice. Yeah, they’d both lost people—a helluva lot of them—but Sam’s had somehow been worse. Or at least it seemed that way to Dean: he’d had to give up Lisa and Ben, but they were still alive. They were happy and breathing. Dean didn’t want to think about what Sam would see if he’d walked into the nest; Jess, Amelia, the werewolf girl he’d had to put down all those years ago…  
  
Yeah, this was better, Dean decided. Sammy was a good hunter, but his heart was always just a little too soft—he always wanted a little bit too much. Dean had no illusions about his future. He’d forgotten them when Castiel had made Lisa forget him.  
  
Dean took another deep breath and closed his eyes. _This isn’t real. That isn’t Sam._ And since Sam’s body—or the illusion of Sam’s body—was gone when he opened them again, Dean figured he’d won. He shook it off with a muttered, “Fuck this,” and crept back out into the hall, toward the stairs in the shadow house.  
  
Maybe he shouldn’t have let his guard down so soon. Splayed at the bottom of the stairs was another body. Another man. Dean couldn’t make out his features in the dim haze of the nest, but he didn’t need to. A tan trench coat, spattered with darkening blood, fanned out beneath the body like a bitter, makeshift shroud. The white button-down and navy tie were ragged with knife-slashes, soaked in angry, spreading red. Behind the body, massive wings left their sooty burn mark on the floor of the foyer, the wall beside the steps. A glint of silver—Dean knew it was an angel blade—protruded from the man’s chest. Dean’s breath caught in his throat. He shouldn’t have let his guard down so soon.  
  
_This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real._ His thoughts raced. His gut betrayed him anyway.  
  
“Cas?!” he choked out, startling himself.  
  
The rawness of the sound in the cold silence felt heavy. Whatever this thing—this _soul eater_ —was, it probably had him in its sights now. But Dean couldn’t help it. He couldn’t even control his legs; they carried him down the steps toward Castiel’s body, fueled by anxiety and the sudden raging grief. He hit his knees beside his angel and scooped the limp form into his arms. Dean shook Castiel; he’d never been good at a gentle touch. Not in times like these, anyway. The angel didn’t wake. He didn’t even stir.  
  
“Okay, no, not today,” Dean breathed, stilling and squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re not real. This isn’t real.” But the body felt too real in his arms. Too heavy. Too cold. Dean opened his eyes again, and Castiel’s blue ones stayed closed. And _there._  
  
“Why won’t you disappear?” Dean hushed to no one. He shook his angel again and his voice grew louder, darker, tainted with fear and hurt. “Why won’t you disappear?!”  
  
Still, the angel didn’t answer. Didn’t move. In this place, this dark other, Dean was alone. The Sam hadn’t been real. Dean had made him go away. Why couldn’t he make Cas evaporate too? Why couldn’t he stop himself even though he knew it was illusion? Dean sucked in a few calming, steadying breaths. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t Cas. _Cas is out looking for leads on the Darkness,_ he reminded himself. _Cas isn’t here._  
  
Finally, some of the tension banding around his stomach loosened. Dean felt the tightness in his chest ease ever-so-slightly as he talked himself down from the heady, inconsistent grief. It wasn’t going to completely disappear—those things don’t just vanish in a place like this—but now, at least, it was controlled. A low burn: still hot, still dangerous, but not enough to char. Dean could handle this. He could control himself.  
  
But he didn’t want to.  
  
There was always something different about Cas. “A more profound bond,” the angel had called it once upon a time. To deny it would be pointless. Sam knew it. Cas knew it. Hell, even Bobby knew it. And Dean especially knew it. It had occurred to him before—in those moments when he’d lock eyes with his angel for just a little too long, or stand just a little too close, or ‘forget’ to mention personal space—that the way his body felt around Castiel was the way it had felt around Lisa. But with Cas, it was easier. And harder. As enigmatic and confusing as the blue-eyed angel himself. It wasn’t something he’d ever say out loud, though, or even think too loudly. Every time he touched Castiel, he withdrew too quickly for Sam to make anything of it. But that’s not what he wanted. And here, alone, he didn’t have to.  
  
It wasn’t Cas. But it _looked_ like Cas. It felt like Cas. So Dean, against his better judgement, knowing time was short and that any moment, the soul eater would descend upon him with long, black eyes, cradled the angel to his chest. He leaned his forehead against Castiel’s, laced a hand through the mess of dark hair, and reveled in the unfamiliar closeness. He closed his eyes and imagined the body in his arms was warm and breathing; tried to figure out how Cas would react. _Would he pull back? Would he draw me closer? Would he say my name more softly than he has before?_ Somehow, in the shadow-house, Dean let slip a smile. But of course, it couldn’t last. Of course that was his hint, his internal warning system kicking him in the ass, reminding him of his hunter’s instinct. He steeled himself and willed away the body, like he had with Sam’s. In a few seconds, a coldness—like an icy wisp of smoke—fell through his fingertips, and his arms were empty.  
  
When he opened his eyes again, the illusory Castiel was no more. No blood, no death, no ashen wings painting the wall. Just Dean, on his knees, in the soul eater’s nest. He sighed hard and pushed to his feet.  
  
Time to finish the job and get the hell out.  
  
***  
  
When it was over—when he was out, and recovered, and in the car with Sam, his little brother asked what he saw. Dean didn’t think he’d be able to talk about Castiel. Not without putting up a fight, and he was too run down and emotional for it. He’d call Cas later. Make it about hunting, a Darkness check-up. Nobody would be any the wiser, and he’d get his fix. At least he didn’t have to completely lie to Sam.  
  
“I saw you,” Dean answered simply. “Dead on the floor.”


End file.
